


Wolf Blood

by sunryder



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Timelines, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Dragon Riders, F/F, F/M, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-23
Updated: 2017-09-25
Packaged: 2018-12-05 16:55:19
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 11,165
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11582277
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sunryder/pseuds/sunryder
Summary: For all that Ned rode with fraternal fury in his heart and all the wrath of the North on his heels, he was not the brother the gods sent to answer a prayer.Instead, it was Oberyn Martell who rode reckless up the winding path the Tower of Joy.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> My knowledge of GoT is sketchy at best, so put aside the flagrant misapplication of canon and my own love of anything involving dragon riding. I'm having thoughts about a massive AU involving the three Targaryen children, and I realized that for that to make sense, I needed to share this bit of prequel with you.
> 
> Enjoy ;)

Every breath of his lungs and every stride of his horse was a prayer from the newly made Warden of the North and Lord of House Stark. They were a thousand thudded, pleading prayers to the Old Gods that his Lyanna might be alive. But Ned Stark was a practical man, even when it came to his faith. He knew it was too much that Lyanna might be untouched after all these months, but his sister was made of stern stuff. So long as she was still breathing, she would recover.

For all that Ned rode with fraternal fury in his heart and all the wrath of the North on his heels, he was not the brother the gods sent to answer a prayer. 

Instead, it was Oberyn Martell who rode reckless up the winding path the Tower of Joy. It was a sad little outpost high on the mountainside, not nearly as old as its disrepair suggested and protected by nothing but its precarious position and its perfect view down upon the Prince’s Pass. It might have been a clever place to hide were it not for the hulking white dragon sprawled on the precipice’s edge where it could stare down at any rider foolish enough to climb the mountain. 

Oberyn wasn’t sure what was waiting for him in the Tower, but there would be no hiding from any passerby with eyes that a Targaryen had come. The whole of the country was in an uproar and here the Kingsguard were stupid enough to leave their dragons out where all and sundry might see them. Tywin Lannister’s pride was the only thing that had kept Baratheon from sending an emissary to lure Dorne into staying out of their rebellion, and that luck was all that had kept one of their messengers from looking up on the Prince’s Pass and giving the whole game away. 

Though perhaps they might have been as driven as Oberyn and missed the white scales glinting against the red rock. He wouldn’t have wasted even a glance up were it not for Elia’s hastily scratched letter begging him to the Tower instead of King’s Landing. 

“The children and I will be fine, I promise you. With every hour that passes I expect Rhaegar to arrive. He will protect us from Aegon’s madness as he has done before, and he will put down this rebellion before it has the chance to get anywhere near the city. You needn’t worry about any of us, we will be all right. It is my Lyanna I am scared for. 

“She is ill, Oberyn. For all that Rhaegar’s guards would lay down their lives to protect any of us, there is nothing their swords can do for her. I know that Rhaegar has been keeping details of the rebellion from her to preserve her health, but no matter what you may think of the girl we have brought into our marriage, Lyanna is no fool. Rickard Stark raised all his children well, and she knows Robert Baratheon better, I imagine, than anyone alive. I do not know if trying to puzzle out the truth or actually knowing the reality of what’s happening will be worse for her, but either way, my sleep is plagued with nightmares that the next time I see my Lyanna, it will be at her grave. 

“Please, darling brother, go to the Tower of Joy and look after my wife with all the love and devotion you would use to take care of me.”

How could Oberyn deny his sister after such a plea? For all that he was furious at the thought that Rhaegar might either want or need a second wife to satisfy his draconic urges – and was discomfited by the reminder that his beloved elder sister might herself want another bed partner – he would not fail her in this. 

While Elia was usually the most reliable of writing companions, Oberyn had received only two letters from her since Lyanna Stark had disappeared from her father’s halls: the second pleading with Oberyn to ride to the girl’s aide, and the first a joyous announcement from Elia about her second marriage. Though he would never believe Elia entirely until after he heard the happiness from her own lips, it was enough to quell his temper at the worry that his sister had been cast aside. Targaryens were known for their manifold lovers, and if they were to be faithful, their numerous spouses. But still, Oberyn could not escape the fear that like so many Targaryen spouses before her, Elia might truly hate the mistress her husband had made wife. 

But still, for Elia he rode. For Elia he packed along a second horse laden with all the herbs and potions that might do his new sister-in-law any good. And for Elia he raised his hands in peace rather than running a spear through the chest of Arthur Dayne when the man and his dragon met him on the small plateau that held the Tower of Joy. “How did you find us?”

“Elia wrote to me.” Oberyn slowly drew her letter from his bag, showing the seal of the Targaryen dragon, a colossal red larger still than the massive white currently staring down at him. “She told me Lady Lyanna was ill and begged me tend to her.”

“Consort Lyanna. They are properly wed. If that letter was truly from the Queen you would know that.” 

Lady Ashara came tumbling out out the Tower’s only door and crashed into her brother’s back, ignoring the dragon who politely shuffled its feet to avoid the collision. Oberyn cared not for the sweaty tendrils of hair that dripped into her face, or that she had stripped down to a shift that would have been all the gossip in King’s Landing and perfectly at home in Dorne. No, he focused on her hands, which were streaked with smears of still-wet blood. 

“She is very ill, it seems.”

“We need him.” 

The Ser kept his sword right where it was. “He’s a poisoner, not a Maester.”

“Arthur, he can’t possibly make it worse.”

Had one of Lyanna’s agonized screams not come echoing down the stairs at that moment, Dayne might have continued his objections, but the little queen voiced her own best defense. Dawn’s tip dropped to the dirt and Oberyn took the stairs at a run, leaving Ashara behind and shouting for Dayne to bring his bags. 

Oberyn was ashamed to admit to himself that in the back of his mind as he mounted the stairs he thought that such agony was the least of what the Stark girl deserved for what she had done. Men had died and the entire kingdom had been upended for her rash declarations of love. But it was difficult to think of the girl as an interloper in his sister’s marriage when she lay sprawled on a straw bed, her body the head of a river of blood and a king’s child dying in her belly. 

For that was the ‘illness’ that Elia was terrified would take her wife just as it had nearly taken her. Oberyn froze in the room’s doorway, ignoring Whent chasing him up the stairs to demand what he was doing there and the useless washerwomen who were just telling the girl to breathe as they let her bleed to death.

Oberyn stripped off his riding jacket and demanded all the hot water and clean towels they could bring him. When they stood there and stared, he screamed at them to move, a roar that was echoed by the dragons outside. As the servants scattered, he thanked that his own obsessive preparedness meant he had several vials of coagulant already prepared in the bag that Dayne handed him. (The potion normally took hours, time which they did not have.) Then, as he would have done for his Elia, Oberyn stroked his hand through Lyanna’s hair as he forced her to swallow, singing her old Dornish blessings so she might live through the birth. There would be no saving the babe, even if Rhaegar had got the girl with child the first night he had her in his care, it was too early. But perhaps, with luck and all his skill they might be able to save the little mother. 

In the lull of a contraction Oberyn pulled away, dragging more materials from his bags and leaving Ashara to take his place at soothing. The space in between the birthing pains was worse. Though Lyanna’s screams of pain faded away, they were filled with heartbroken sobs. Oberyn grabbed Dayne by the jut of his armor and shoved him back out the door to demand what had happened. For all the man was a seasoned warrior, he still gulped before he said, “She heard Oswell talking about the deaths of Lord Stark and his heir.” 

“Only that they are dead?”

“No. She heard how.”

Oberyn swallowed back the instinctive nausea at the reminder of such gruesome deaths. If he wasn’t needed here, Oberyn would have hunted down Whent and thrown him from the top of the tower for such stupidity. The hale and healthy were repulsed by the terrible way the Stark men had met their end fighting for one another and in their she-wolf’s name so Oberyn could hardly imagine the agony that must have come when that same she-wolf discovered how they’d died. It was pain that was no doubt shredding her heart while her babe ripped her body in two. “Perfect. She’s going to lose her child and already she’s lost the will to live.”

For such a hard man Dayne looked surprisingly heartbroken. “You can’t… you can’t save it?” 

“If she lives through the night it will be at the mercy of all the gods.” 

Behind them, Lyanna’s sobs gave way to whimpers. She had collapsed into Ashara’s arms and they all released a sigh of relief that she’d slipped in unconsciousness. All, that is, but Oberyn. He grabbed smelling salts from his bag and forced them on Lady Dayne. “Take this. Wake her up.”

He ripped through his materials, cursing that Elia couldn’t have found a way to hint to him that Lyanna’s ‘illness’ was pregnancy. He’d come prepared for all manner of Northern ailments and traveling bugs but with little for childbirth. “It’s not working, Prince.”

“Hit her if you have to, but wake her up!”

“The poor girl is exhausted, can’t you just let her sleep?” One of the old servants demanded.

“It’s too difficult to tell if she’s asleep or if she’s dead. Wake her up.”

“Do you even know what you’re doing?” Ser Dayne asked. 

“If you wanted to critique my abilities, you should have gotten a Maester.” 

“Prince Rhaegar was supposed to return with a Maester before the child was born.”

“And Prince Rhaegar was supposed to ask Lord Stark before he made his daughter a bride and got her with child.”

“Don’t.” Lyanna croaked, finally swimming back to consciousness. “I made them take me with them. They didn’t steal me.”

“Believe me, Lady Lyanna. I know all about your midnight escape. In truth, I know far more about your wedding night then I ever wanted to know about my sister.”

“Eli said you deserved it.”

“I suppose that’s true. If she’s walked in on me once, she’s walked on me a hundred times.” 

Lyanna giggled before the laugh broke in half and turned back into a sob. “They’re gone. He murdered them.”

Oberyn climbed onto the bed beside her, uncaring for the damp blood he could feel beneath his knees. “That, little sister, is a matter for a different day.” 

“They’re my brother and my father!”

“And it’s your child that needs you now. Your father and your brother died for you in a wretched, twisted way, but they did it for love. Don’t betray that love and follow after them.” Oberyn was not so good a man to feel ashamed for pretending like the child might ever draw it’s own breath. Though it didn’t do much good as the reminder of the manner of her family’s death only made Lyanna weep like the heartbroken child she was, too fast and too hard to draw breath. 

“Ah, ah, where is the she-wolf of House Stark?” Oberyn nudged the bottom of her chin and gently extracted her from her ball of misery. “Where is the wild girl of the Old Forest and the blood of the First Men? Show Aerys he can fuck his fire and blood because the North will remember, and the Starks will survive. You and your pretty little pack of dour wolves, you’ll survive.” Her breathing slowed and she met his eyes all on her own. “No, better than that, you’ll come back in the night and rip out his throat with your teeth. Fight, little sister. Fight.” 

Lyanna Stark, Consort of Westeros, closed her eyes for one long breath before she met Oberyn’s gaze like they were about to step onto the battlefield. “I’m ready.” 

“Good. Now let’s meet my niece.”

Lady Ashara slipped behind Lyanna, resting the exhausted girl against her chest and taking her hands so she might have something to squeeze as she screamed through the contractions. Oberyn slammed the door in the face of Sers Dayne and Whent before he took his place between the Queen Consort’s thighs. He demanded she push. There was no time for pain. There was nothing he could do for her wounds with the child still on its way out, and the longer it took, the less likely it was that he could help her. Lyanna’s screams turned to battle cries, and within a few minutes there was a blood-streaked, mucus-covered baby in his hands. 

A breathing blood-streaked, mucus-covered babe. 

Oberyn was so busy checking the child over in disbelief – yes, breathing. But not yet certain how to cry – that it look him a long few moments to even realize. “It’s a boy.”

“What?” Lyanna forced herself upright, free of Lady Ashara. 

“A small, glowering, baby boy.” Oberyn did not mention that the child probably wouldn’t live much longer as slipped it into his mother’s arms. He tucked Ahsara’s hands underneath Lyanna’s and gave the woman a sharp squeeze so she would keep them there. He left Lady Dayne to coo at the baby while Lyanna just stared at what she had accomplished. Oberyn ignored them both and went back to Lyanna’s vagina, observing the damage and running quick stitches over the tears. Common sense suggested that the harsh stitches that he’d do for a battle wound were perhaps not the best for such sensitive organs, though he couldn’t say for certain. Lyanna’s best chance was to get to a Dornish Maester that Oberyn could trust, few as those men might be. However, the journey on horseback would likely kill her, and he had no notion what a dragon flight might do to her instead. If any of the Kingsguard dragons outside would even bear her on the way. 

“Sweet little Visenys.” Ashara sighed.

Lyanna ran a steady finger over her son’s thin cheek. “No.”

“No? All three of you expected a girl that you were going to call Visenya. Is Visenys not the proper form for a boy?” Ashara asked.

“I don’t care what we were going to name my daughter. My son and I, we’re wolves. Aren’t we, brother?” 

It took Oberyn a long moment to realize Lyanna was speaking to him. Across her blood-soaked birthing bed Oberyn met Lyanna’s eyes and felt as though his soul was being sparked on fire. He understood now how his sister might have fallen in love with this child the same as she had the Silver Prince. “That you are, little sister.”

“Rickard, then?” Ashara asked, hesitantly. 

“Jon.” 

“Jon?” Lady Dayne sounded scandalized. 

“Prince Jon Targaryen, First of his Name, Lord of the Andals and the Rhoynar and the First Men, Protector of the Realm, and Shield of his People.”

“A heavy burden on so small a child.” Oberyn mentioned, unwilling to let her get her hopes up too high. 

“He will meet it.” 

Oberyn wanted to claim that the moment was heavy with prophecy, a queen declaring the future of her child like they had in the old stories, but it was filled with nothing but Ashara’s call for help. Lyanna had collapsed. 

The men of the Kingsguard ceased all pretense that they hadn’t been eavesdropping and burst into the room. “What’s happening?”

“She fainted.”

“Is that normal?”

Oberyn glowered over his shoulder with a stare that might have killed a lesser man. He looked at Ashara’s terrified expression, down at the blood-soaked bed, and back at the two men still huddled in the doorway. “Thank you for conclusive proof that celibacy rots a man’s brain.”

“Martell—”

“She’s dying. People who lose this much blood are dying, even if doesn’t come from a sword wound.”

“Can you save her?” Dayne demanded, cutting off any further attempts by Whent the Idiot to speak.

“No. I don’t have the tools necessary to stop her bleeding. We need to get her to a Maester who’s dealt with this before. Now, will those things outside let her ride them?”

“Those things? The king’s dragons?” Whent demanded. 

“Yes, those. Will they let her on their back?”

“They’re Targaryen dragons. Of course they’ll let her ride them. It’s hard to ride things when you’re unconscious, however.” 

“If she stays here, she dies. If we can get her to Dorne she might, might live to see tomorrow. The dragon flight will be painful and terrible, but will be far less of a risk than trying to make the journey on horseback.”

“She’s a Targaryen. They’ll take care of her.” Dayne declared. 

“Does that mean they’ll let me ride with her to Dorne?”

There was a roar from the ground below the window. “That means yes,” Whent explained, a little too smug. Oberyn just stared at them. “Dragons have excellent hearing.”


	2. Chapter 2

To be Kingsguard consumed your life. Undying loyalty sounded like such a simple thing until you understood that it mean keeping the King’s secrets, no matter how horrid. It meant giving over your body to the protection of his, sacrificing your bloodline so that no wife or children might outweigh his. It was an oath that could not be betrayed, and a bond that only death could sever. 

Rhaegar Targaryan, however, was not the king. 

For all that the Silver Prince was beloved and the Kingsguard would joyfully turn themselves over to his protection upon Aerys’s death – if only for the fact that it meant they would never again have to listen to Rhaella’s screams behind her bedroom doors – he was not king yet. Dayne and Whent were Rhaegar’s truest companions, both happily assigned to Rhaegar’s service and would willingly follow the future king against the current object of their oath. Depending upon who you asked, they had already betrayed their vows by acting as witness to Rhaegar’s marriage to Lyanna Stark and helping spirit her away from the North in the dead of night an bringing war down around their ear. The rest of the Kingsguard however, their loyalty was to King Aerys, long may he reign. 

So when Lord Commander Gerold Hightower stood alone at the center of the Roost, waiting for Ser Oswell land his dragon. Oswell dismounted with the terrible certainty that he was about to be killed for the letter he carried in his pocket. Gerold cut him off before he could try and stammer out any justification. Instead, he turned in a swirl of white cloak and beckoned the boy to follow. Ser Oswell went with his head held high, prepared to face the Mad King and the kind of gruesome death that he’d stood by and let happen so many times. For all that he had promised his loyalty to Aerys, Oswell intended to die keeping the secrets of the far worthier son. 

Ser Oswell had been chosen for the Kingsguard based on his fine knife work and his sharp tongue’s ability to make any load seem lighter. The barest sense of stratagem was something Hightower thought he might be able to teach the boy in time. That deficit meant that it took a bit longer than it should have for Oswell to realize that he wasn’t being led to Aerys’s throne room, he was being escorted to Princess Elia’s chambers – what perhaps could more fairly be called her cell after the last few months. 

The Silver Prince was laid out on a divan, with Aegon on his chest, Elia under his arm, and Rhaenys asleep in the space between. They were picturesque in a way that broke Oswell’s heart for what was about to happen. “Maybe we should wait?” he croaked, like that could possibly be enough to deter the Lord Commander. 

Rhaegar didn’t have to bother looking to know that Ser Gerold was rolling his eyes. “The Prince isn’t asleep.” And it didn’t speak particularly well of Ser Oswell that he seemed to have either forgotten or never noticed that the Targaryens were always aware of their dragons. Rhaegar had known Oswell was coming nearly a half an hour before he landed atop the Red Keep. Which meant that his father knew as well, hence Ser Gerold there waiting. And no doubt one of Varys’s birds had followed their every step down from the Dragon’s Roost. 

“I’m not, but my children are.” Rhaegar replied. “If you come bearing news that will lead to screaming, please deliver it elsewhere.” 

“There shouldn’t be. I mean, I… I honestly don’t know, Your Grace.”

“Is she alive, Ser Whent?” The soft voice of Elia Martell cut through the prevarication. She had moved not one inch, her cheek still pressed to Rhaegar’s shoulder as she opened her eyes and stared at Oswell with the same gaze that her brother had turned on him mere hours when he ordered about the Kingsguard about like it was his birthright. 

Oswell licked his lips and debated for one long moment whether it was wise to speak in front of the Lord Commander, but there was nothing for it, not when Elia had asked. “Yes, your grace. Prince Oberyn arrived and sent me with this letter.”

Elia was off her husband in a heartbeat, snatching the letter out of the knight’s hand while Rhaegar adjusted the children to suit the absence of their parents. Elia paused at her own broken seal, and gave the slightest smile at Oberyn writing back to her in the margins of the page she had first sent him. 

“You left them at the Tower of Joy?” Rhaegar asked while Elia read. 

“Yes Majesty, but not for long. Prince Oberyn insisted on taking them to Dorne and was mounting up as I left.”

“The Maester said she shouldn’t be on horseback in her condition!”

“Your Dunkos agreed to carry them.”

“Them?”

“Her Grace, Prince Oberyn, and…”

“And? Would Arthur not let Lady Ashara ride on Dawndancer again?”

“Rhaegar, Lyanna gave birth.” Elia unintentionally saved Oswell. Her focus was too buried in the letter to realize she spoke the words he was floundering to share. 

“What? You didn’t think to start with that?” Rhaegar whisper-shouted at his knight. Elia tucked the paper behind her back before her husband could see a word. “Eli?” With her free hand the princess guided Rhaegar over to chair away from the children and settled herself on the ground before his feet. Oswell flushed and looked away, while Ser Gerold knew better than to take his eyes off the prince even for a moment. “Beloved, what happened?”

Elia took his hand in hers and with a steady voice explained. “Darling, Lyanna is bleeding. The child came too early and her body wasn’t ready to deliver. Oberyn has done all he can do, which after all the time he spent with me when I was recovering from Aegon, you know is quite a bit. He says that she is strong and the Maesters should be able to help her.” 

“And the baby?” Elia pressed her lips together and Rhaegar cupped her face in his hand, brushing a soft thumb across her cheek. “Was the baby too early? Did we lose her, Eli?”

“The babe is small, but strong. Oberyn says,” Elia pulled the letter back out to quote him precisely. “It is black of hair, brown of eye, and as of writing, seemed too unimpressed with birth to bother crying.”

The stunning smile that had won so many hearts broke across Rhaegar’s face. With a relieved sigh he dropped his forehead to Elia’s, and she hated to end his peace. She pressed her lips to his ear and murmured, “Rhaegar, my darling. The babe is a boy.” 

The Prince’s head popped up like he must have misheard. “A boy?” he unwittingly announced to Ser Gerold. For all strategy was not his forte, Oswell caught Gerold by the arm before he stumbled.

“Jon Targaryen.”

Rhaegar spilled out a half-crazed laugh that sounded a little too much like his father’s for anyone’s liking. “She named him like a Stark.” 

Elia tried to soften the blow. “From the description it sounds like he is one. Which makes one child for each of us.” 

Rhaegar’s laugher soon gave way to hiccupping sobs that he couldn’t have known mirrored his young wife. “He’s a Stark. Our son is a Stark. Oh gods, father is going to kill him.” 

Elia ran soothing hands through her husband’s unbound hair, but said nothing to console him. Ser Gerold was too reeling from the announcement to stop Oswell before he took it upon himself to try. “They’re already in Dorne. They can stay there for a bit until the King calms down. Prince Oberyn was calling Lady Lyanna ‘sister’ all throughout the delivery. I’m sure he’ll keep them safe. Once we’ve put down this rebellion his majesty won’t think his grandson is here to usurp him.”

Elia kept her mouth closed and watched her sweet husband, her tenderhearted prince who still believed that through common sense and sheer force of will they might return Aerys to the wisdom that he had once possessed. That perhaps Aerys might apologize and they could cleanse the blood of Stark, his heir, and his bannermen from the Red Keep’s floors. He ignored the Kingsguard and instead looked in his wife’s sad eyes and knew she didn’t believe a word of it. Rhaegar sank to knees before Elia, shoving his chair away and scooping her tight into his arms. “I believed he’d learn to love Rhaenys, and he still won’t touch her for looking too Rhoynish.” 

“I believed it too. That the love of his son’s child would be enough to placate him.”

“Jon is of the First Men. We can convince him it’s a coup to intermingle with their bloodline.”

“With a bloodline that will be at war with him until the end of their days for murdering their Lord and his heir?” 

“They’ll be in Dorne. Oswell isn’t wrong, Doran will protect them.” 

Elia took Rhaegar’s face between her palms and forced her beloved husband to look with her into the dark that so troubled him. “Are they to live in exile? Are we to pray that Aerys passes soon so that we might see our son and our wife before we’re all old and gray? And are we to destroy the whole of Westeros while we wait? To serve him, and murder innocent people for him while in our hearts we’re begging the gods to take him from us?”

“Princess, you shouldn’t talk like that.” Ser Oswell glanced over his shoulder at the door with the terrified certainty that there had to be a bird perched outside it listening in. 

“Someone must.” Elia choked back a sob. “Shall I try for another, Rhaegar? Will we convince Aerys that our Jon means the third head is meant to come from me? Do you believe that might stop the killings? Will it be enough to keep Varys from sending assassins into Dorne to slip some blood thinner into Oberyn’s potions so that our wife might die under his hand? Or some sellsword into our sons’ nursery to slit his throat before we ever get the chance to see him?”

Rhaegar buried his fingers in her curls with the sting of too tight a grip to make sure she listened. “I won’t have you die to distract him.”

“I won’t have our child and wife die for his madness!” Elia hissed out a breath and forced herself to calm down. “I’m petrified, beloved.”

All the misplaced fury slipped from Rhaegar’s bones. “You’ve always warned me to be careful with him.”

“And you were careful. But there was no saving our plans for Harrenhal after your father decided to come to the tournament.”

“But you told me not to pay Lyanna so much attention and I did it anyway.”

“You’ve always been too much of a romantic to see sense.” 

“But still, you told me that I would’ve been better off making nice with the Stark boys then following around their sister. And you warned me that we should keep sending Lya letters rather than galloping off north to see her in person.” Rhaegar gave a small, wet chuckle. “And you warned Lya and I both that we should enter Winterfell to declare our love and plead our case instead of running off to the Godswood. But we ignored you, and here we are. Lyanna is in hiding, her father and brother are dead, and our son, our Jon, might never get to come home. So I ask you, Eli, what should I do?” 

“I can’t tell you that, darling. It’s your decision to make and not mine. But I do know that I don’t want to be scared anymore.”

“Then I won’t make you be.” He pressed a soft kiss to her forehead then rose with all the grace that came from a line of kings. “Oswell, take my family to the Roost. If Dunkos panics, then I’ve fallen and you must run to Dorne.” 

“Majesty?” The knight looked pathetically confused at how the argument had turned so quickly. Rhaegar ignored him and held out his hands to Elia, lifting her to her feet and drawing her as tight against his body as he could.

He pressed his lips against her as he had done a thousand times before, in a thousand kisses, and a thousand mornings where he was blessed enough to wake beside her. “I love you. No matter what happens today, never forget that I love you.” He stepped away to run a soft hand over the mess of his children’s hair, black curls and white fluff tangled together as the two had pressed close together in their sleep. “Tell them that I did it for them. To keep them safe from whatever form his madness might take next.” Rhaegar returned to his wife and kissed her one last time, with all the soul-consuming passion that should have sustained them for the rest of their lives. 

As he went to step away, Elia grabbed the Silver Prince by his tunic and brought him in close, one hand in his hair to drag his ear down to her lips as she whispered, “Valar morghulis. Even kings.”

Rhaegar closed his eyes and sucked in a painful breath before he stepped away from his wife and faced down his father’s Lord Commander. “Ser Gerold. I know that—”

“You know very little, your majesty. But you know more than you did an hour ago.” Hightower laid his hands on Rhaegar’s shoulders, perilously close to his vulnerable neck from a man sworn to end him for such treasonous speech. “Valar morghulis, Highness.”

“Truly?” Rhaegar sputtered.

“On my honor, for what little worth that has.” Gerold tugged on Rhaegar’s tunic, straightening out both the fabric and his spine. “Now, go be a king.”

Rhaegar stumbled his way to a flinch of a smile, but it was enough to lead him away from his family room and towards the throne room. It took all of his will not to look over his shoulder and be sure his wife and children made it safely in the other direction, but he knew that if he looked, he’d follow them up to the Roost and live out the rest of his days in the warmth of Dorne. He’d happily go down in history as Rhaegar the Vanished. That is, if he lived long enough to be known as anything other than The Murdered. 

As Rhaegar and Hightower stepped into the final hall, without breaking his stride, Rhaegar murmured. “No matter what happens here, I trust you to tell the truth, Ser Gerold. If I die, I need you to bear witness to Baratheon and Stark that I tried to finish this. You can say whatever you need to to protect your own reputation, but tell them that I tried.”

“You have my word, Majesty.”

“May I ask, why?”

“I’d expected you to care more that the prophecy will go unfilled then worry yourself about what the King will do.”

Rhaegar came to a stop before great doors to his father’s throne met Ser Gerold head on. “Let me repay your honesty with a truth of my own. For a long moment, I did. All I could think of was what a second son would mean for the prophecy. My first thought upon hearing about the birth of my child was that my father would be furious because he wasn’t the child who had been promised. I wasn’t worried about his health or about Lyanna’s recovery, I was trying to understand what a seers words might mean now. 

“I made it so far as to think about how easy it would be to send Lyanna and her son to the North, and in twenty years let my sons have another Dance so fate could decide which of them was the prince that was promised. Then I could offer my Rhaenys to whichever of her brothers survived. I will have to spend the rest of my life knowing that the thought even crossed my mind that I might encourage my sons to tear one another apart for fate. How do I live knowing that?” 

“You do better, your majesty. Better is all you can do. Better is why I’m standing here and not on the other side of that door.” 

“If it looks like I’m going to fall Hightower, run. I need you to get to the Roost and follow after my family as quick as you can. By then Oswell should already be on the way with them, but…”

“I will guard them as my own, majesty. I swear it to you on my life.” 

Rhaegar patted him on the shoulder, certain that Gerold Hightower would keep his word. With that, Rhaegar closed his eyes and donned a bright smile before he pushed open the doors as though nothing at all was wrong. “I have news father.” Gerold slipped around the edge of the room, leaving Rhaegar to stand unknowingly where his father-in-law had died a few weeks before. His certain strides kept Aerys’s eyes on him while Gerold nudged Lannister away from the throne and shared long looks with Martell and Darry. 

“Have you put down the Baratheon dog?” Aerys croaked, a smile cracking across his face.

“No, father. I have not dealt with the rebellion as of yet. But I have good news nonetheless.”

For all the Aeyrs was indeed mad, his wits had not left him entirely. He tottered to his feet and down the Iron Throne’s steps as he exclaimed, “Ah, the dragon has three heads. Your wolf bitch has given birth. Now it is time to be rid of the pretenders. You will fly out and tell them that the prophecy will be fulfilled with their blood. Go my son, and secure the Targaryen dynasty for the next thousand years.”

Rhaegar welcomed his father’s shaking grip, the old king’s hands settling on him in a mockery of Hightower’s touch. “I’m afraid I can’t do that, Father. You see, I have a son.”

“I know,” Aerys grumbled, like Rhaegar was demeaning him. “Aegon. The Prince Who Was Promised.”

“Aegon, yes. And now I have Jon.”

“Jon?”

“Lyanna named him in the custom of her people. She says he looks every inch the Stark.”

Rhaegar tried to put his hands on his father’s shoulders in return, but Aerys shoved him away in a rage. “A son! The wolf bitch bore you a son! Lannister! Bring me that miserable Dornish cunt my son chose and I will put Visenya in her—” Aerys stopped, a thin dagger buried at the junction between his neck and armor cutting off his words. Aerys had just enough strength to turn on his heel and grab at his son as he collapsed. “You killed me.”

Rhaegar gathered his father into his arms and guided him down to the stone. “I cannot let you hurt my family any more, father.”

Aerys tried to spit out a curse, that Rhaegar would meet his own end at the hands of the wolf bitch’s bastard, but the words were lost in the blood pooling in his mouth. And so Aerys Targaryean, The Second of His Name, once called The Wise, he who descended to The Mad King, died in his son’s arms. 

The Kingsguard stood around the room, some in shock, but all of them having followed the lead of their Lord Commander. Darry looked about ready to fall on his own swords for the betrayal, while Martell turned his back, but none of them were charging forward to avenge their king. Ser Gerold stopped forward and placed his hand on Rhaegar’s shoulder. “It had to be done, your majesty.”

Rhaegar tried to push the tangled mess of his father’s hair away from the blood streaked across his face from his snarled last words. “Should they start calling me a mad king, promise me that you’ll end me before my sons have to do it.” 

“It was a mercy to us all.”

“He was my father.” 

“Even so. I’m told a man must do better by his son.”


	3. Chapter 3

“I really think that maybe you should let me land and speak to them first, your majesty!” Jamie called over from the back of his dragon. Rhaegar ignored his Kingsguard and took Dunkos into a dive at the empty space before the front lines of the Lannister’s army. 

He could see a few bannermen from the four allies in this rebellion and it was the god’s own luck that Rhaegar had come upon them when all of their leaders were together to discuss the assault on King’s Landing. A few hours more and they probably would have disbanded to the wide reaches of the kingdom, each back to their own armies and dealing with the individual battles on different fronts to would have been to come. For all that one prophecy had died by Rhaegar’s hand this very day, he still took it as a good sign that he could treat with all of them at once rather than fly from place to place. It was a gift to just be done with the peace so he might be straight away from the negotiations rather than waste on words any moment’s of his youngest born’s precious and potentially short life.

Jon Arryn was another gift, because if anyone knew what a dragon’s attack formation was or wasn’t, it was the former Hand of the King. The Kingsguard had all tried to accompany Rhaegar on this impromptu meeting because of their certain knowledge that even a dragon and its rider might be taken down in a barrage of arrows. But Arryn knew what it meant when a dragon approached slow from the front and swooped as wide and as far away from surprising an army as possible. 

Rhaegar and Jamie set down on the far side of the wide encampment, just far enough away that even if their dragons began to spit fire, the army would be out of range. “At least tell Ser Gerold that I tried to talk you into something safer.” Jamie sighed. 

“If I survive this, then you have my word that I’ll try. He won’t believe me, but I’ll try.”

Lannister had always been the sort of knight willing to roll his eyes at his king, which was a bit jarring considering that the next moment he strode forward, a pretty picture in his white cloak, and shouted, “All hail Rhaegar Targaryen, First of his Name, King of the Andals, the Rhoynar, and the First Men, Lord of the Seven Kingdoms, and Protector of the Realm.”

Lannister paused to let Rhaegar’s new title drift across the army in frantic whispers. “The King of Westeros desires to treat with Lord Arryn of the Eyrie, Lord Paramount of the Vale, and Warden of the East; Lord Lannister of Casterly Rock, Lord Paramount of the Westerlands, and Warden of the West; Lord Stark of Winterfell, Lord Paramount of the North, and Warden of the North; and Lord Baratheon of Storm’s End, Lord Paramount of the Stormlands. Let them come forth and have King Rhaegar’s word of honor that no harm will come to them by his hand, by his dragon, or by his word.”

There was no verbal reply, and it took several long minutes for the Lords to decide that they’d give any answer at all. In the silence, it was all Jamie could do not to pace back and forth. When they did emerge, all four men stopped just outside the bounds of Lannister’s army and waited for their King to come to them. Jamie wanted to puff up in offense, but Rhaegar gave both him and Dunkos soft pats before he strode forward, ignoring the bannerman not at all concealed behind the front lines.

It was too easy to see which of these noble lords had been marching day and night for the blood vengeance of a broken heart and which one rode for pride. After so many campaigns and so many years in power, Jon Arryn knew how to pull himself together for a confrontation, even when he must have been exhausted. Lord Lannister, of course, looked as fresh as a spring daisy. Rhaegar doubted that he’d pushed himself or his men an inch on the ride. A journey that must have been mountains lighter than the road taken by his companions since he carried no loss on his road. Lords Stark and Baratheon were both young, only a few years less than Rhaegar and barely men themselves. They didn’t understand how to pace themselves, or how to wipe the mud off their faces and the rage from their eyes when they met an opponent for anything other than bloodshed.

Rhaegar bit back the inbred urge to turn their disparate motives and years of experience against them. Rhaegar reminded himself that had done wrong by them. He had brought this to their doorstep. And he had more important places to be than the days it would take him to shatter the alliance that had risen up against his throne. 

“How did the Mad King die?” Lannister demanded the moment Rhaegar stepped in range, speaking the words all of them wanted to say with far too little tact.

Rhaegar held his answer until he was close enough to communicate without shouting like a child across the field, but still far enough that if one of them lost their senses and lunged for him he’d have enough time to draw his sword. Then Rhaegar simply stood there and held the silence until all they were burning with the urge to shake him until the words fell out. Perhaps if he kept telling himself that he could pretend it was for strategy and not pain at having to speak the words aloud. “I stabbed him while his back was turned.”

As it had been with Rhaegar’s announcement of kingship, it took several long moments for them to understand. “You killed your own father?” Arryn asked, the smallest of croaks to his voice. 

“I killed the mad, murderous thing that wore my father’s face,” Rhaegar snapped. He tugged Elia’s letter out from underneath his bracer and handed it to Jamie, bidding him to give it directly to Lord Stark. 

“Forgive me if I don’t believe you’d be willing to do such a thing.” Lannister said, edging closer to see some part of the note. 

“You are a fool if you are more willing to believe that my father would approve a plan that would involve me assuming his kingship even in a farce, and even for a moment. I killed him this very day and my first act as king was to ride out to you, to offer you the peace that I couldn’t without my father’s blood on my hands.” Rhaegar didn’t have to look to know Ser Jamie was frantically nodding his head in agreement. 

“Peace? Who gives a damn that the Mad King is dead? How in the hell are we supposed to have peace with you after what you’ve done?” Baratheon demanded. “You stole my Lyanna from me and it’s your fault Rickard and Brandon were murdered. There can be no peace with a creature like you! I say we end the bastard right now and be done with this!” 

“There is one person on this field today who has the right to kill me where I stand, and it is not you, Lord Baratheon. I didn’t make it back to the Red Keep in time to save Lord Stark and his son and that is a shame I will bear until my dying day. If the young Lord Stark wants to kill me here and now for recompense, I won’t fight him, and no member of house Targaryen will hold it against him or his family from this day until my line dies, I’ve made sure of that. And if Lord Stark grants me my life, I extend the same right of punishment to his brother and his sister. Any Stark may kill me for my failure, but that right does not extend to you.”

“Swear to me this is true.” Stark demanded, and only then did Baratheon realize that Eddard had gone weak in the knees, caught round the waist by Jon Arryn and held up as he read through the letter with shaking hands.

“Ned?”

Rhaegar ignored him, focusing only on Stark. “It was true as of ten hours ago when Prince Martell put the letter in Ser Whent’s hand and bid him deliver it to me.”

“And… the other? The other parts from Queen Elia’s letter?”

“You mean that we both fell in love with Lyanna? That is true as well.” Rhaegar perhaps should have wrapped it up in vaguer terms, but concealment had led him this place and Rhaegar was done with it. 

“Don’t spew your shit here Targaryen! You stole my Lyanna!”

“You honestly believe I managed to walk into the fortress of Winterfell, take the She-Wolf unwillingly from her home without rousing any suspicion or her screaming for help, and sneak her out of the North without raising a single alarm?”

“Lyanna has always liked to roam out of Winterfell. It’s one of the things I love about her.”

“And how do you imagine I abducted her? I just happened upon her in the dead of night when she was out walking?”

“You stalked my Lyanna!” 

“Stop calling her yours! Lyanna is no ones but her own!” Rhaegar snapped back. Baratheon raged forward and Arryn had to leave Stark to grab him before he attacked.

Ser Jamie stepped in between them. Rhaegar put a hand on his shoulder and pushed him back so they might all take a breath and move their hands from their swords. “The truth for you, Lord Stark. Eli wrote to Lya immediately after Harrenhal to apologize for my folly with flower crown and to explain what she knows better than anyone else: I have trouble seeing sense when I’m besotted. Lya wrote back, and so on it went between the two of them, with me dropping in the occasional hello until we rode north to see her. I swear to you, Lord Stark, Elia and I planned on going to Winterfell and convincing your father of our good intentions and asking his permission to court her.”

“He would’ve stabbed you where you stood.” Baratheon growled. 

“Lyanna thought so too. She rode out to meet us to keep me from getting stabbed and… we went straight to the godswood.”

“You married her.” Baratheon croaked.

“Lyanna, Elia, and I. All three together.”

“There can be no such marriage.” Lannister finally interceded. While the man had been content to let the young soldiers yell at one another and Arryn scramble back and forth to keep them in one piece, the Warden of the West could see the fight draining out of Eddard Stark. Once Stark gave in, Arryn would be quick to follow and he’d drag Baratheon along with them, ruining whatever plan Tywin had to gain from this rebellion. “Don’t let him deceive you, Lord Stark. Not even your gods will tolerate such a thing.”

“My gods don’t give a damn about numbers, Lord Lannister. The Queen wrote this to her brother.”

“She did,” Rhaegar confirmed before Lannister could say anything else. “Prince Oberyn went to help, found the situation as you read it, and sent Ser Whent back to update us while he took Lyanna to Dorne.”

“What was ‘as you read it’, Ned?” Baratheon demanded. 

“Lord Stark,” Rhaegar interrupted. “I ask that if you’re going to kill me that you refrain from sharing any of that information with your companions until after you’ve retrieved Lyanna yourself.”

“You accuse me of wanting to hurt her?”

“Not on purpose, Lord Baratheon. I do not believe that any of you are the sort of men would ever deliberately set out to damage my wives or my children, but accidents have been known to happen. I’ve made myself a kinslayer this very day to keep one of those ‘accidents’ from happening in my father’s name.” 

“What are you accusing me of, you—”

“She’s a mother, Robert.” Rhaegar closed his eyes and sighed. While he found Northern bluntness charming in his young wife, it was terribly dangerous in her brother.

“What?”

Lord Lannister was the one to demand Stark repeat himself, and so Ser Jamie took it upon himself to answer. “This morning, Queen Consort Lyanna Targaryen gave birth to Jon Targaryen, First of his Name.” 

“You—” Baratheon lunged for Rhaegar’s throat and both Stark and Arryn rushed to stop him. “He forced her into this!” He screamed as he struggled. 

“If he did then I’ll kill him myself!” Stark declared

“You know he forced her, Ned! Lyanna loves me!” 

“Robert, I scarcely know anything today. But what I do know is that Lyanna might be happy out there someplace when this morning it was all I could hope for that she might be alive. I know that I’m an uncle when yesterday I thought Benjen and I were the only Starks left in the world.”

Baratheon stumbled away from Ned like his touch was poisonous. “You’re siding with Targaryen.”

“No, Robert. We began this war for Lyanna, for Brandon, for my father, and for the kin who died with them at Aerys’ hand. And now they’ve been avenged by my sister’s husband. The Mad King is dead. Lyanna is safe. This is what we went to war for!”

“Then kill Rhaegar and be done with it!”

“Kill my sister’s husband before I know if she ran off with him for love?”

“He abducted her!” 

“Ned has the rare chance to ask Lyanna herself.” Jon Arryn rested his hands on Robert’s shoulders and tugged him away. “Go see to your sister, Ned. Find out the truth of things and we’ll wait on your judgment.” 

“We’ll wait?” Lannister demanded.

“The Mad King is dead. If King Rhaegar abducted a girl who couldn’t consent then he deserves the same fate as his father, but if he fell in love with a girl and ran off to marry her, well, he wouldn’t be the first who did that.” 

“He started a war for his supposed love.” Lannister interjected. 

“Aerys did that.” Arryn objected. “None of us expected that The Mad King would slaughter his in-laws. Go, Ned, find the truth.”


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As a reminder, this was designed to be a prequel to a much longer story. So yes, this is complete, but it's not the end. 
> 
> Thanks for reading!

After the seventh time Ned Stark told the story, it would dawn on him to be quite proud of himself for not vomiting all over the dragon’s back at any point in the flight. Wolves were supposed to keep their feet on the ground. And having been at war, Ned could honestly say that Dragons were worse. As it was though, he was more concerned with heaving himself off the beast’s back before it could settle down onto its haunches. 

Doran Martell was waiting for their landing, leaning on his cane with two guards at his side. Ned cast aside all the decorum his mother had tried to teach him and demanded to see his sister without bothering to exchange pleasantries. Though when the words came out, there was nothing but begging in them. Doran fixed him with gentle eyes that only a man whose sister had once been dying could share and called to Rhaegar that the entire family was his bedroom. Rhaegar took off at a run, Ned matching his stride and, after a yelp, Lannister on their heels.

There were handful of Dornish guards and two Kingsguard on the doors, all of whom looked just the smallest bit panicked at the sight of Ned Stark in full armor and wolf-skin cloak breaking into a full sprint towards them. Ned ignored them all to burst into the bedroom. His first thought was the Lyanna looked pale. She was propped up on the bed by a pile of pillows that were in every color under the sun. Martell sat beside her while she endured a Maester’s examination with the utter lack of grace she’d always had, while Queen Elia cradled a bundle of blankets that Ned could only assume was his nephew while the prince and princess stared at the their young sibling. 

At some later point Ned would remember that he was a grown man and now a lord in his own right, but at this moment, he all but leapt onto the bed and swept Lyanna into his arms. “Oh, Ser—” the Maester tried to warn, but Oberyn cut him off. 

Lyanna shook like she’d been outside in a midwinter storm, but with her weak hands she grabbed at his shirt and dragged him as close as she could. Ned drew his cloak around them both and tucked her head underneath his chin, the two of them wrapped up in their own little world. It was a place they’d found themselves in a hundred times before, usually after a harsh word at him for being too sour, or at her for being too fierce. More than one bannerman had lamented to their father that a bit of Lyanna’s fire in Eddard’s belly and a bit of Eddard’s ice in Lyanna’s veins would have made for far better children than the middle-born. 

Neither Stark said a word, just huddled together like pups against the storm. For all they both smelled like sweat and that half-rotted stench of blood that hadn’t been quite cleaned, they pressed closer, like if they let go it might all be a dream and they’d be back on opposite sides of Westeros wondering if the other was dead. 

“Really, Prince Oberyn, she has to lie back down.”

“Give them a moment.” Oberyn hissed at the Maester.

“I don’t want to be fed to a dragon because I let her brother pop a stitch!” 

Ned tried to pull himself away, scared that she would die in his arms, but Lyanna refused to let him go. “I don’t want to hurt you.” 

“Sometimes the best thing a woman can have for her ailments is her family around her, Lord Stark.” Though Ned had seen Queen Elia across grand halls, he had never heard the woman speak before. Her voice was like the soft swish of a woman’s skirts, subtle and so easy to ignore, but it was still the same soothing sound that colored every man’s childhood and meant the safety of mother’s arms. 

“Ned, meet my wife, Elia.” Lyanna extended her hand and dragged the woman towards their pile.

“Majesty.” He gave an awkward, seated bow. 

“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Lord Stark, despite the circumstances.”

“Considering we’re alive, I imagine they’re the best circumstances possible.”

Lyanna summoned up the strength to smack him across the arm. “Don’t be rude, Ned.” Lyanna ignored his objections that he wasn’t trying to be and held out her arms to Rhaegar, who looked torn between going to her and keeping the baby in his arms. Ned knew Oberyn said something coy said about husbands, but Ned didn’t pay attention to a word of it because at Lyanna’s prodding, Rhaegar slipped a bundle of blankets into his arms. 

Ned seized up, hefting the thickly swaddled child against his chest like he would a pup about to wriggle from his arms even though the child wasn’t moving. The babe was sound asleep and uncaring who it got passed to, but still Ned was terrified of dropping him. The Queen’s soft laugh broke through Ned’s haze and she pressed down on his shoulders with gentle hands. “You can relax, dear. Just keep your arm under his head, and a hand under his bottom and he’ll be fine. If you’re doing it wrong, he’ll let you know.”

From the safety of her new husband’s arms Lyanna snickered at the way Ned negotiated the tiny bundle. “Don’t pretend like either one of us have ever held a baby before this.”

“You haven’t, but people have been shoving babies at me since I stopped being one.” Lyanna scooted forward ran the back of her hand across the child’s cheek. “Eddard Stark, this is my son, Jon.”

“You know that Lord Arryn is going to be pleased as a peacock when the boy’s name finally settles in.”

“And Lord Arryn will have earned all his pride, even though it wasn’t… it seemed disrespectful to name him after father or Brandon. After what I’d done.”

“You were reckless, Lyanna. You decided to run off without even thinking of telling someone that you did it for love. You didn’t even tell Benjen and he likely would’ve gone with you all the way to Dorne if you’d asked. I’d have gone with you, or stayed home and told father that I can see they’re both in love with you.” Ned could almost feel the fire coming off of Rhaegar’s skin beside him, ready to kill Ned where he stood for blaming Lyanna, while she sat there and accepted every word. “But Lyanna, you didn’t kill them. No one could have imagined that they’d be murdered for it. Take responsibility for what you’ve done, not for a madman. Don’t give him that too.”

Starks were not ones for weeping, but Lyanna sobbed out fat, ugly tears as she pulled her brother back to her. Somehow Elia managed to keep baby Jon in Ned’s arms, pulling Rhaegar away from his crying bride while tucking Lyanna against Ned’s side and tucking them both under the covers like children. “Eli—” Rhaegar tried to object, but Elia took him by the hand and nudged him towards the door, trusting her own brother to heft the older children and glowering the Maester into compliance. 

“They need a minute to themselves, Rhaegar.”

“But she’s—” 

“It’s been almost a year since they’ve seen one another and he thought she was dead.”

“But she’s our wife.”

“And he was her family long before that.” Silence descended on the room as Elia shut the door in the wake of her trying to explain to a grown man whose only siblings were small children what it was like to have a sibling you regarded as a friend and not some strange mix of child and heir. Ned didn’t think it would much work, but Lyanna would teach him the truth of it as time went on. After all this Ned certainly wasn’t going to leave Lyanna behind to the whims of a Southern court. He foresaw endless trips to Kings Landing in his future, either by him or by Benjen, both of them unwilling to let their family disintegrate after coming so close to losing them all.

Lyanna’s giggles broke Ned out of his plans to make Rhaegar a bit less of a Targaryen.“You have a crush on my wife.”

“No I don’t.”

“I don’t blame you. She is beautiful.”

Ned grabbed one of the mountain of pillows and popped her in the face, which was as good as admitting it. Lyanna cackled with all the strength she could manage, which wasn’t much. Ned sank deeper into the covers and pulled her tighter against him. He couldn’t summon up the will to huff about the teasing as he would’ve just a few months ago. He was still too close to wondering if perhaps he had died on the battlefield and was living in a dream. Though not even in his most twisted fantasies or darkest nightmares had he ever once thought to be the Lord of Winterfell. Which meant the moment his father or Brandon walked through the door he would know it was a delusion.

When Ned had received word that his father and brother were dead, he’d given himself five minutes to retreat to his room and collapse to the floor in his grief. He wasn’t the sort of man to rage, but neither was he one who could put aside duty for the days he needed. Instead, he gathered up his shattered pieces and stepped out to issue orders. He called the banners, horrified that now he had the right to do so, and swallowed back his nausea to marry his brother’s beloved. 

So, as much as Ned the second child and exhausted soldier wanted to fall asleep with the baby drooling against his chest and Lyanna breathing in time with, the Lord of Winterfell kept pressing at the back of his mind, reminding him he had things to do. There was an army waiting for him to tell them not to attack, Robert to talk off the ledge from whichever direction Lyanna’s betrayal would have him jump, and Catelyn was near due with a babe of Ned’s own. 

To leave at all would be far too soon, and it was with a weighted heart that Ned pressed a kiss to Lyanna’s sweaty mat of hair and murmured that he had to go.

“To where? Benjen has kept Winterfell running this long without you, what’s a few days more?”

“If I’m gone a few days Lannister will manage to convince Robert and Jon that Rhaegar has murdered me and I’m just another person they have to avenge.” Lyanna was quiet for far too long after that piece of information. “Did they tell you that we were coming for you? That half the kingdom rose up against the Mad King for what he did to our family?”

“I knew that Robert had risen to arms with Lannister. I knew he’d try to talk Lord Arryn and father into joining them, but when father held back on calling his banners I thought they were trying to work things out peaceably.”

“They were. And the Mad King met their parlay with murder.” He slipped from the bed and with great care settled the babe down in the basinet. 

“Are you sure you don’t blame me Ned?”

“I’m allowed to speak of our father and brother’s murderer with all the venom I like without secretly meaning that I’m angry with you. I need to speak of them with all the wrath that I like because if I keep it in me I’ll start taking it out on those who are less deserving of my ire.” 

“Like me.”

“You’ll be wrapped up safe in King’s Landing with a dragon and a viper in between me and you. No, I have a wife at home and a child on the way who shouldn’t be blamed because I never wanted to be Lord of the North.”

“A wife?” Lyanna scrambled up. “Ned, who on earth did you marry?”

“Catelyn Tully, of course.” 

“There’s no of course about it. Catelyn? But she--” 

“We needed House Tully for the war we were about to fight. So much so that Jon Arryn married Lysa and we agreed that despite Brandon’s death and how perfect for one another they would have been, the alliance between our two houses was to stand.”

“Who is this we? Did Catelyn have any choice about marrying her beloved’s brother?”

“Your confidence in me is overwhelming, little sister. Of course we gave her a choice. I asked her myself if she could stand to spend the rest of her life looking at a poor replacement for Brandon and she said she could.”

Lyanna tried to make it off the bed, but she couldn’t get her legs properly under her. “You’re not a poor replacement for Brandon.” 

“Not to you, but to the woman who loved him and the men who swore their oaths to follow him, I’m the dour-faced imitation.”

“Father was dour.”

“And the rest of you took after mother, all life and adventure, and caring not one whit for the consequences.” 

Lyanna murmured, “Ned,” bogged down by tears while he tucked her back in.

“You ran away from home and from your betrothal arrangement. Father and I begged Brandon to stay in the North and let him handle the negotiations. And now I have to fix it for both of you. There are consequences to your actions, Lyanna, and for all they were unintended, we’re living with them. I don’t blame you for their deaths, and I don’t blame you for how the rest of my life will have to go, but at least allow me my anger at those I can blame.”

“You sound so wise, brother. I feel like I hardly know you anymore.” Ned pinched his lips to keep from snapping that she was doing the same yet again. Lyanna flinched at her realization and swore with a hand outstretched, “I will do better Ned.”

“We will both have to be more than we were.” 

“We will, Lord Stark. And do you know why?”

“Because, Queen Lyanna,” Ned smiled, “our pack has survived.”

“Better still brother, our pack has grown.”


End file.
